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Origin and history

The Church of Notre-Dame-sur-l'Eau, located in Domfront in Poiraie (formerly Domfront in the Passais), is a Catholic building built between the 11th and 12th centuries. It was originally part of Lonlay Abbey, founded by William I of Bellême, founder of Domfront Castle. Given around 1020 at the abbey, she became a Benedictine priory dependent on Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire. Its Romanesque structure, typical of Normandy post-1050, makes it a model of religious architecture of the time. It was dedicated in 1156 and served as an aristocratic parish, even welcoming the baptism of Alienor, daughter of Henry II Plantagenet, in 1162.

Over the centuries, the church underwent multiple restorations and partial destruction. In the 16th century, it was restored after damage, especially in 1578. During the Revolution, it escaped destruction thanks to its aristocratic burials, but served as a warehouse, saltpeter factory, and spinning. In 1836 four of the six spans of the nave were destroyed to break through a road, reducing its length from 40 m to 9.45 m. An octagonal frame arrow, replaced in 1826 by a quadrangular pyramid, once ran the tower.

The church is a mixture of two nearby construction phases, with a nave and a transept slightly disoriented southward. His transept, particularly remarkable, presents cruciform supports rare in France, inspired by Germanic models. The choir, vaulted with ridges and decorated with blind arches, houses murals discovered in 1957. The granite capitals, carved with geometrical and animal motifs, bear witness to the influence of the Caennais and Breton shipyards. Ranked in 1840, it was restored after the 1944 bombings, preserving its apse and apsidioles intact.

The furniture includes a 12th century high altar, a 14th century Virgin with Child, and funerary slabs, including that of the Marquise of Lesdin (17th century). The church, originally named Notre-Dame-sous-l'Eau (until the 19th century), owes its present name to its proximity to a ford of Varenne. Its history reflects the political and religious upheavals of Normandy, from its Benedictine foundation to its role during the Wars of Religion and the Revolution.

Today, the building retains a shortened nave, a salient transept, and a semicircular bedside. The remains of the collaterals, now blocked, recall its old greatness. The bays in the middle of the hanger, the oculus of the transept, and the imposing cross tower, decorated with capitals, make it a unique testimony of Norman Romanesque art. The successive restorations, notably those of Alphonse Simil (1897–1904), preserved his medieval paintings and his original structure.

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